Sometimes it’s hard to believe there was a time when the Adobe Creative Suite didn’t exist. Prior to the late 1980s, if you were creating an advertisement or illustration for a magazine, cover art for a video game cartridge, a movie poster or a book cover, you did it the way it’s been done since the dawn of the retail age: ink, paint, X-Acto knives and airbrushing....

I’m a real sucker for Japanese vending machines. In general, I love the multitude of designs, colors and contents available. More than the modern machines though, I love the vintage designs that can still be found here and there, scattered around Japan. I’ve spent hours watching the videos on http://jihanki.michikusa.jp/. Uotani Yusuke’s website introduced me to the...

Sometimes it’s hard to believe there was a time when the Adobe Creative Suite didn’t exist. Prior to the late 1980s, if you were creating an advertisement or illustration for a magazine, cover art for a video game cartridge, a movie poster or a book cover, you did it the way it’s been done since the dawn of the retail age: ink, paint, X-Acto knives and airbrushing. This article deals with the airbrush, in...

I’m a real sucker for Japanese vending machines. In general, I love the multitude of designs, colors and contents available. More than the modern machines though, I love the vintage designs that can still be found here and there, scattered around Japan. I’ve spent hours watching the videos on http://jihanki.michikusa.jp/. Uotani Yusuke’s website introduced me to the wondrous world of of the Fuji Electric noodle...

From the 1980 J.C. Penney Christmas Catalog. Featured here is the Atari 800. With a whole whopping 16k of RAM. Holy mackerel, it’s monstrously huge! Looks like it was built into an IBM Selectric chassis. — Reposted from June 2011. This is a brand new selection of vintage personal computers in the 1980s from Department Store catalogs. As usual, I dug through the magnificent selection at Wishbookweb.com. Go there. Wait,...

My latest pinup. It’s been a while since I’ve put my nose to the grind and really worked on my art. I’m enthusiastic about this one though, and I believe it will help me to get back on task. I love video arcades, and Galaga is one of my all time favorite games. It seemed only natural to create a Galaga...

“The Official Silicon Valley Guy Handbook”, written in 1983 by Patty Bell, Doug Myrland and Bob Glazar. As with most of my unusual finds, I found this in the bottom of a bin at an estate sale. This is one of the earliest tomes chronicling the rise of the code monkey. It’s a tongue in cheek instruction manual for living as and understanding the computer programmer in the early days of the computer age. It’s also...

I have soft spot for 1980s computer tech. Maybe it’s because I grew up during the start of the personal computer revolution and was heavily invested in it at an early age. Maybe it’s because I’m nostalgic and I feel sad for all those early generation beasties, languishing in land fills today. Maybe it’s because I’ve never gotten past my love of the old keyboard clickety-clack sounds, which were so much...